ALAN HIRSCH is founder of Forge Mission Training Network, 100 Movements, and 5Qcollective. He is author of numerous award-winning books on movements, organization, and leadership, and teaches extensively across North America, Europe, and Australia.

ONEYA OKUWOBI is a sociologist and postdoctoral fellow at Rice University’s Religion and Public Life Program. Her research investigates how diverse organizations impact racial inequality. She serves as teaching pastor at 21st Century Church, a church plant in Cincinnati, Ohio. She is also coauthor of Multiethnic Conversations: An Eight-Week Journey Toward Unity in Your Church.

RICH ROBINSON is a spiritual entrepreneur, movement catalyst, and founder of Catalyse Change and Movement Leaders Collective. With a passion for releasing kingdom potential in leaders and organizations, Rich has led pioneering training across the globe to bring about spiritual, strategic, and social change.

BRIAN SANDERS has helped to start hundreds of missional enterprises, including churches, nonprofits, and businesses all over the world. Most notably, Brian is the founder and former executive director of the Underground Network, an international fellowship of microchurch incubators creating city-based ecosystems of faith, creativity, and empowered social enterprise.

LEONARD SWEET  is author of more than seventy books, including Nudge: Awakening Each Other to the God Who’s Already There; From Tablet to Table: Where Community is Found and Identity is Formed; and Rings of Fire: Walking in Faith Through a Volcanic Future. He works with doctoral students at Drew University, George Fox University, Northwind Seminary, and Evangelical Seminary (Kairos University).

MAC LAKE is passionate about developing leaders especially in the area of church planting. He co-founded the Launch Network and previously worked as the Senior Director of Church Planting Development for the North American Mission Board’s Send Network. He is currently the Visionary Architect of Multiply Group and is a Navigator with Auxano. Mac and his wife, Cindy, live in Charleston, SC.

MICHAEL ADAM BECK is a pastor, professor, and author redeemed by Jesus from a life of incarceration and addiction. He and wife, Jill, are United Methodist co-pastors with a network of fresh expressions gathering in nontraditional spaces. He serves as director of the Fresh Expressions House of Studies at United Theological Seminary; cultivator of Fresh Expressions Florida; and director of re-missioning for Fresh Expressions US.

JEFF CHRISTOPHERSON is about fostering Kingdom movements of reproducing churches that transform neighborhoods and the world with the gospel of Jesus Christ. Jeff is the Executive Director of two organizations; the Canadian National Baptist Convention, and Church Planting Canada. He and his wife, Laura, live in Cambridge, Ontario.

HUGH HALTER is a father of three—and now a grandfather—who, along
with his wife, Cheryl, has raised his family to live an adventurous life,
following Jesus and bringing God’s good news to those around them.
With over thirty years’ experience leading his own family, church planting,
and discipling the next generation of parents, Hugh is passionate about
equipping families to see God’s kingdom at work in and through their lives.

JR WOODWARD, PHD (University of Manchester, UK) is the national director of the V3 Movement, author of Creating a Missional Culture, and coauthor of The Church as Movement.

TAYLOR MCCALL has been a serial entrepreneur from a young age and began serving in traditional ministry in 1999. For the past fifteen years, he and his wife, Lindsey, have been working in urban communities and planting churches, and have started or helped start over twenty businesses, as well as a business incubator that’s launched many more. Along with their 5 kids, they live in Alton, IL just outside St. Louis working with Hugh Halter and the Lantern Network.

HEATHER GORMAN (PhD, Baylor University) is professor of New Testament at Johnson University and author of Interweaving Innocence: A Rhetorical Analysis of Luke’s Passion Narrative. She lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, with her husband, Jamey, and two daughters.

ANITA GIARDINA LEE is passionate to amplify and celebrate the voices of women in the church: past, present, and future. When she’s not tending to her young family or working with the team at Boundless Enterprise, she is excitedly researching the legacy of Discipleship women have in the history of Christianity and dreaming up ways we can be the church Jesus intended us to be.

JO SAXTON is a speaker, podcaster, leadership coach, and author of numerous books. She is the founder of Ezer Collective – an initiative dedicated to investing in women leaders and equipping them to own their voice and boldly step into their calling. She also serves at Bethel University as the executive director of The 25th, which focuses on emerging women leaders across industries as they launch their careers.

MANDY SMITH is pastor of St. Lucie Uniting Church, Brisbane, Australia and the author of The Vulnerable Pastor: How Human Limitations Empower our Ministry and Unfettered: Imagining a Childlike Faith beyond the Baggage of Western Culture. Her next book, Confessions of an Amateur Saint: The Christian Leader’s Journey from Self-Sufficiency to Reliance on God, will be released by NavPress in October 2024. Mandy and her husband, a New Testament professor, live in a little house where the teapot is always warm.

ANGELA LAM is co-founder of Hagar’s Voice, a nonprofit supporting survivors of clergy sexual abuse and offering training for religious organizations looking to prevent abuse. Angela ha twenty-years’ experience as a pastor and works alongside licensed social workers and counselors who offer advocacy for survivors in religious whistleblowing and disclosure. As a pastor, she understands the dynamics and pressures of church leadership; as a woman she knows the dynamics of abuse and the tensions of gender in religious spaces.

LORI ANNE THOMPSON’S life has been marked by significant childhood and adult trauma, including various forms of abuse and deprivation. After seeking help from the evangelical faith community, she was revictimized by clergy. Now, Lori Anne serves the survivor community through speaking, writing, and her professional work. She holds a B.Sc. in kinesiology from Queen’s University and a master’s in child advocacy and policy from Montclair State University. A member of Alpha Epsilon Lambda Society, she works as a registered kinesiologist and an intake specialist for a survivor-centric law firm. Lori Anne is dedicated to her family, continuing education, and empowering fellow survivors.

MARIAH HUMPHRIES is a Mvskoke Nation citizen, writer, and speaker. She is the Executive Director for The Center for Formation, Justice and Peace, an interdenominational organization cultivating the character necessary to pursue peace through kingdom justice in the manner of Jesus. With more than twenty-five years of vocational ministry service and a master’s degree in theology, she challenges and encourages the American church to lead at the intersection of faith and justice.

MICHAEL FROST is an Australian missiologist and one of the leading voices in the missional church movement. Author of several books, he is the founding director of the Tinsley Institute and The Forge Mission Training Network.

DEBRA HIRSCH is a pastor, speaker, and cofounder of Forge International. She is a founding board member of Missio Alliance and founding member of Movement Leaders Collective. Debra is the coauthor of Untamed: Reactivating a Missional Form of Discipleship, as well as the author of Redeeming Sex: Naked Conversations About Sexuality and Spirituality.

JAY Y. KIM serves as lead pastor at WestGate Church, California. He’s the author of Analog Church: Why We Need Real People, Places, and Things in the Digital Age and lives in Silicon Valley with his wife and their two young children.

 L. ROWLAND SMITH serves as national director for Forge America Mission Training Network. He is also the director of The Pando Collective, a microchurch network in Colorado Springs, Colorado, launched from Pulpit Rock Church where Rowland serves on staff. He is the author of Life Out Loud: Joining Jesus Outside the Walls of the Church.

JESSIE CRUICKSHANK is a demonstrated disciple-maker and facilitator of spiritual transformation. She is an ordained Foursquare minister and a nationally recognized leader in the fields of Experiential Education and Educational Neuroscience. She holds a master’s from Harvard in Mind, Brain, and Education. Jessie is passionate about creating organic systems that facilitate holistic human and organizational development.

JON RITNER has twenty years of pastoral leadership experience, from growing an American megachurch to planting microchurches in Brussels, Belgium. He currently serves in Los Angeles as lead pastor of Ecclesia Hollywood and is on the board of directors for Communitas International, a global church planting movement. Jon trains pastors and church planters from across the country with Forge America, Fuller Theological Seminary, the V3 Movement, and 100 Movements. Jon and his wife, Kristyn, have two children, Addy and Jax.

GREGORY COLES is the author of Single, Gay, Christian: A Personal Journey of Faith and Sexual Identity and No Longer Strangers: Finding Belonging in a World of Alienation. He holds a PhD in English from Penn State University and currently lives in Idaho’s Treasure Valley, where he works as a senior research fellow at The Center for Faith, Sexuality & Gender.

DOUG PAUL is an innovation strategist who works with churches, denominations, networks, and socialpreneurs. He lives in Richmond, Virginia, along with his wife, Elizabeth, and three kids, where he also helps lead a local church in the city center.

TYLER KLEEBERGER is a pastor at The Farmhouse in rural Northwest Ohio where he lives with his family. Host of the podcast Becoming Human and cohost of The Bible Archives, Tyler writes and creates content on theology, ecology, philosophy, and psychology. His work can be found at tylerkleeberger.com.

CHRIS FROST is the lead elder at Gateway Church, Leeds, in the UK. He serves leaders more widely as the UK team leader for ChristCentral churches. He has an MA in Mission and Leadership, an MSc in Senior Leadership and is a chartered manager.

STEVE ADDISON is a catalyst for movements that multiply disciples and churches, everywhere. He is an author, speaker, podcaster and mentor to movement pioneers. Steve is married to Michelle. They live in Melbourne, Australia and have four children and three grandchildren

JEREMY & MONICA CHAMBERS have participated in launching movements that make disciples and networks of microchurches in over thirty-five countries. They currently work with Forge America, The Pando Collective, and The Arise Network, and previously authored Kingdom Contours: Empowering Everyday People With the Tools to Shape Movements.

LANCE FORD is a pastor, church planter, coach, and consultant. He is the cofounder of Sentralized Conference and KC Sentral and the coauthor of various missional books.

DANIELLE STRICKLAND is the author of six books, including The Other Side of Hope, and hosts the podcast The Right Side Up, which recently surpassed half a million downloads. She leads Boundless Communications Inc., which includes initiatives like Women Speakers Collective, IMBY (a tiny home movement), Brave Global (preventing human trafficking), Infinitum (a way of living deeply), and Hagar’s Voice (support for abuse survivors). Danielle speaks at events worldwide and lives in Vancouver, Canada, with her husband Steve and their three sons.

SCOT MCKNIGHT (PhD, University of Nottingham) is a world-renowned speaker, writer, professor, and equipper of the church. He is a recognized authority on the historical Jesus, early Christianity, and the New Testament. His books have been translated into Chinese, Korean, Russian, and Portuguese. He is the author of The Jesus Creed, The Blue Parakeet, The King Jesus Gospel, Revelation for the Rest of Us, numerous commentaries, and is now writing a sixteen-volume series of reflections called The Everyday Bible Study. Scot blogs on Substack and hosts the Kingdom Roots podcast.

AARON WHITE is the author of Recovering: From Brokenness and Addiction to Blessedness and Community. He teaches at Westminster Theological Centre and, with his family, has served in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside for the past twenty years.

BOB EKBLAD is co-founder, along with his wife Grace, of Tierra Nueva and The People’s Seminary in Burlington, Washington. He holds a ThD in Old Testament from the Institut Protestant de Théologie in Montpellier, France. He pastors at Tierra Nueva, offering training around the world and online through The People’s Seminary (www.PeoplesSeminary.org). He is the author of Reading the Bible with the Damned, A New Christian Manifesto: Pledging Allegiance to the Kingdom of God, the Beautiful Gate: Enter Jesus’ Global Liberation Movement, Guerrilla Gospel: Reading the Bible for Liberation in the Power of the Spirit, and the Guerrilla Bible Studies series.

DR. ELIZABETH RIOS, an Afro-Boricua from Manhattan now living in South Florida, is the founder of Passion2Plant, a national church planting network training leaders to start justice-oriented churches. Her writings have appeared in Sojourners, Influence, Called, and Christianity Today, and she has been featured in The Atlantic, The Washington Post, and Outreach Magazine. An author and contributor, her latest work is Rhythms of Rest: 40 Devotions for Women on the Move. Dr. Rios has been married to Hiram for thirty-four years and has two sons, Samuel and DJ, who transitioned to heaven in 2022.

CAROLYN WHATLEY is a marriage and family therapist working in an addiction recovery center and is the Team Lead for Activism of Hagar’s Voice, an organization that strategically supports people impacted by clergy sexual abuse. As part of her work, Carolyn seeks to integrate spiritual transformation, trauma recovery, and healing of grief and loss with those impacted by and recovering from addiction, abuse, and oppression in all its forms. She also engages in community justice initiatives through a decolonizing, anti-racist lens in hopes of cultivating spaces that are trauma-informed and safe for everyone. Her clinical practice, research, and interests are deeply seated in the awareness that each person embodies the image of the Holy Mystery and is worthy of honor and dignity.

KATE COLEMAN was the first black woman Baptist minister in the UK, a former president of the UK Baptist Union, a past chair of the UK Evangelical Alliance Council, and has since been recognised as one of the 20 most influential black Christian women leaders in the UK. A popular speaker, lecturer and author, Kate has gained a reputation as a pioneer, visionary, and an inspiration to many. She now serves as a strategic advisor who mentors, coaches, and supports leaders and organisations locally, nationally in the UK, and globally with a network that extends across all sectors and church denominations.

LISA RODRIGUEZ-WATSON serves as the national director of Missio Alliance. For nearly two decades, Lisa’s heart to see people reconciled to God and to one another has led her to invest her life and family in various roles within collegiate ministry, international missions, immigration advocacy, community development, and urban church planting.

DANIEL SIH is the co-founder and director of Spacemakers®, a productivity consulting group for busy leaders. As a trainer, coach and keynote speaker, he has worked with CEOs, executives, and other senior professionals throughout Australia and beyond, ranging from global corporations and businesses to universities and non-profits.

He has a broad professional history, including leadership roles in physiotherapy, health management, project management and Christian ministry. He is the founder of a number of globally accessible productivity courses such as Email Ninja®, List Assassin®, Priority Samurai™, which in total have more than 15,000 students online and offline.

Daniel lives in Tasmania, Australia with his wife, Kylie, and their three children, Naomi, Caleb and Jethro. He also keeps fourteen Barnevelder chickens who eat too much grain and lay too few eggs.

MARK DEYMAZ is a thought-leadership practitioner who planted the Mosaic Church of Central Arkansas and cofounded the Mosaix Global Network. An adjunct professor at Wheaton College and United Theological Seminary, Mark has written several books, including The Coming Revolution in Church Economics; Disruption: Repurposing the Church to Redeem the Community; and Building a Healthy Multi-Ethnic Church: Mandate, Commitments, and Practices of a Diverse Congregation.

CATH LIVESEY leads Accessible Prophecy (accessibleprophecy.com), working with churches across the world to develop a healthy and mature prophetic culture that both resources discipleship and empowers mission.

She is the author of My Sheep Have Ears and The Prophecy Course and has many years’ experience of teaching and training people to grow in hearing God’s voice and using the gift of prophecy.

Cath loves living in Sheffield (UK) with her family and being part of the leadership of St. Thomas’ Church Philadelphia.

JOHN CHANDLER, a North Carolina native, leads Uptick, a network which invests in building the leadership pipeline in BGAV life and beyond. Since 2007, Uptick has been the catalyst for starting over one thousand new networks serving over five thousand ministry leaders. Uptick is noted as a global Baptist leader for best practices in developing high capacity young leaders, having discipled over three hundred of them so far, many of whom have started Uptick networks in their own contexts.

He has served as a pastor and church consultant, and holds degrees from the University of North Carolina, Princeton Theological Seminary, and Fuller Theological Seminary, and is author of five books.

John and his wife, Mary, live in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, have two great adult sons, Preston (and wife Maria), and Roland (and wife Julia). His favorite title is “Gramps,” to his granddaughters Nora and Emily. John enjoys playing tennis, motorcycling, and passionately cheering for the Tar Heels.

 GARETH ROBINSON is the rector and team leader of Saint Philips Chapel Street in Salford, Greater Manchester and is head of church planting training for New Wine England.

NATHAN BREWER is founder of Kyrios Ministries, an international collective of leaders who seek to reflect Jesus’ fivefold ministry and are committed to making disciples and living on mission. He is a 5Q trainer, coach, and consultant. Nathan and his wife, Insa, are planting a house church network in their hometown of Vienna, Austria.

ANDY FROST is the director of Share Jesus International, the chair of the London Mission Collective and joint CEO of Gather Movement. He has an MA in Applied Theology, has authored a number of books and presented the Jesus Series.

ROB KELLY is a catalyst for city networks everywhere that unite the church for the flourishing of cities. Rob is a practitioner of this work in his own city as the founder & CEO of the For Charlotte Network. Globally, Rob connects, coaches and equips city networks leaders as cofounder of the City Leaders Collective. As an author, communicator, and mission strategist, Rob is a regular speaker at churches, conferences, and seminars. Prior to this work, Rob served 13 years as a pastor. Rob is married to Ani and they are the proud parents of Addison and RJ.

OSCAR AMISI is the senior associate pastor of Deliverance Church Umoja, Nairobi, Kenya. He is also the lead trainer at SeeditOut, an initiative that aims to build and equip high-impact servant leaders in the marketplace. He is a member of the Institute of Directors Kenya, serves as a council member of Movement Leaders Collective, and is part of the ARC (Association of Related Churches) East African hub pioneering team.

RICK DUNCAN is the founding pastor of Cuyahoga Valley Church (CVC) just outside Cleveland, Ohio. Although he is still active in serving CVC, he led the church through a lead pastor succession plan in 2012. Since then, Rick has served with Mac Lake at the Send Network of the North American Mission Board as a member of the church planting training team and as the city missionary for Cleveland. He has been married to Maryanne for forty-seven years, and they have three adult sons, Alan, Ryan, and Evan.

INÉS VELÁSQUEZ-MCBRYDE is a pastor, preacher, reconciler, and speaker. She is co-lead pastor of The Church We Hope For, a multiethnic church planted in Pasadena, California during the 2020 pandemic. She is originally from Nicaragua. Ines earned her MDiv at Fuller Theological Seminary. Ines has been married to Rob for nineteen years and loves being a soccer mom to their son, Nash.

DR. MIMI HADDAD currently serves as president of BCE International. A graduate of Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary (Summa Cum Laude), Mimi holds a PhD in historical theology from the University of Durham, England. An award-winning author, Palmer Theological Seminary recognized Haddad with an Honorary Doctor of Divinity in 2013. Haddad teaches for seminaries and institutes worldwide. A founding member of Evangelicals & Women at the Evenagelical Theological Society, Haddad served as a gender and theological consultant for World Relif, World Vision International, and SASA! Faith Beyond Borders.

JANET MUNN is a leader, author, speaker and mentor, focused on empowering the next generation of leaders, especially women and girls. She has served as director of the International Social Justice Commission for the Salvation Army, has written and co-written several books, including a doctoral dissertation on “Theory and Practice of Gender Equality in The Salvation Army.” Janet has worked for justice and formation locally and globally for more than thirty years.

BETH ALLISON BARR is the James Vardaman Professor of History at Baylor University. She earned her PhD in Medieval History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and is the bestselling author of The Making of Biblical Womanhood: How the Subjugation of Women Became Gospel Truth. She is also a pastor’s wife and mom of two great kids.

DR. TAMMY DUNAHOO is an ordained minister with more than forty years of ministry, church, and denominational leadership experience. She is the executive dean of Portland Seminary of George Fox University, where she also earned her doctorate. Tammy has spent twenty years leading in various capacities at the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel based in Los Angeles, overseeing numerous teams and ministries, church planting, and serving the network across all fifty states. She is passionate about investing in the spiritual formation of leaders and helping them to navigate an ever-changing culture in the church and the world.

MEGHANN JAEGER is an entrepreneur, business owner, wife, mothers of two, and voice for the exploited. She is based out of Vancouver, Canada, where she works in fund development for a global charity that works with survivors of human trafficking, and runs her own businesses – The Intersection: Fair Trade and Your Story Coffee. Meghann loves good coffee, good books, weekend adventures, gourmet donuts, beating her sons at Mario Kart, and hipster tacos. She is passionate about seeing women who have been exploited and trafficked brought into freedom and wholeness, and also about ethical businesses as a means to combat poverty.